Etowah House representatives prepare for legislative session

The Alabama Legislature begins its 2018 session Tuesday, bringing together representatives from all over the state to discuss both local and statewide issues.

Local House representatives have the opportunity to file bills that shape the economy, community and political geography of Etowah County and Northeast Alabama, and to seek solutions to problems that face every Alabama community — from the spreading opioid crisis to human trafficking and education reform.

Here are the issues that local representatives are focusing on during this year’s session:

Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City

Butler is following through on prior discussion with constituents about making the Gadsden City Board of Education an elected, not appointed, position for board members. Each member of the board would represent a district they themselves live in, with a single board president from the city at large.

“We’ve had so much drama, unnecessarily, with the Gadsden Board of Education,” Butler said. “I spent over 10 years as an elected school board member, and it works really well to be accountable to the people. I’ve got legislation drafted for a local bill to put to referendum, and we can let the citizens decide if they prefer it like it is now, or go to an elected board.”

At the state level, Butler is working on better training for teachers about inappropriate contact with students.

“We’re used to seeing teachers hug these children that aren’t getting loved at home, and they need that,” said Butler. “What I would like to do is develop some guidelines.”

Cellphones and social media broke down some of the barriers that typically stood between teachers and students, Butler said, and every case of inappropriate contact he had been involved with had involved one or the other.

He also wants to see more reform in the prison system, focusing on educating children when they are young to keep them from ever becoming a part of the justice system.

“We can’t keep building bigger and bigger prisons,” said Butler. “It’s so much cheaper to educate a child and give them the tools to become self-sufficient than to incarcerate them.”

Rep. Craig Ford, D-Gadsden

Ford wants to create a bill that would allow for a bond issue for a new Southside bridge on Alabama Highway 77 northbound into Rainbow City, for $18 million. The bridge has been a longtime project of the Ford family, starting with Ford’s father, Joe, who also served in the Legislature.

“One of the last things he told me before he passed away was to make sure to finish the Southside bridge,” he said.

Replacing the current northbound bridge, which opened in 1939 (a more modern bridge carries southbound traffic over the Coosa River), would help with traffic safety, easing the risks of taking school buses, emergency vehicles and commuter cars across the river, according to Ford. It also would help with economic development, he said, with companies unwilling to commit their business to locations with traffic chokepoints.

On the local level, Ford filed a bill that will bring the per-meeting pay of the Etowah County Personnel Board in line with that of the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office Personnel Board — a per diem of $60 per meeting, per member.

He also intends to propose a lottery bill, with 75 percent of his constituents reporting via poll that they are in favor of a lottery system in Alabama, he said. Money from that would be split with an Education Trust Fund fund that would provide two-year scholarships to students.

Rep. Becky Nordgren, R-Gadsden

While she has no local legislation on her agenda, Nordgren said she is supporting bills that increase penalties for violent crimes committed in front of children, including the death penalty for anyone who commits murder in front of a child, and increased penalties for domestic violence committed in front of children.

She also plans to support an increase of incentives for hiring veterans, building on the “Heroes for Hire” act, a bill passed unanimously in 2012 that offered tax credits to businesses that employed discharged, unemployed veterans.

She also wants to look at the opioid crisis facing the county, state and nation at large.

“We have a heroin problem in Etowah County,” she said. “It seems like every time I look into a criminal case near where I live, drugs are involved.”

Nordgren said she hopes to get the annual budget out of the way early so more focus can be brought to issues like the opioid crisis throughout the session.

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